STAFF PROFILE
Distinguished Professor Ma Qian Ma
Dr Ma Qian is Distinguished Professor of Advanced Manufacturing and Materials at RMIT. Professor Qian has come to RMIT from The University of Queensland in 2013 where he was the Reader in Materials Engineering, School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering.
Currently Professor Qian also holds the appointments of Honorary Professor of The University of Queensland, Australia, and Specially Appointed Professor of Osaka University, Japan.Professor Qian's major areas of research cover the following:
- Metal 3D Printing or Additive Manufacturing
- Powder Metallurgy of Light Metals and Alloys (Ti, Al, TiAl)
- Solidification Processing
- Metallic biomaterials (Ti, Ta, Zr) and biomimetic surface designs
- Concentrated metallic alloys (HEAs and MEAs)
- Micro-nano-architectured materials
- De-alloying and re-alloying
- Thermodynamics of Materials
Professor Qian's major academic contributions include:
- Light Alloys: Metallurgy of Light Metals, 544 pages, 5th edition, Elsevier, 2017 (I. Polmear, D. H. StJohn, J. F. Nie and M. Qian),
- Three other Elsevier books as co-editor: Titanium Powder Metallurgy: Science, Technology and Applications, 648 pages, Elsevier, 2015 (M. Qian and F. H. Froes, editors), Titanium in Medical and Dental Applications, 630 pages. Elsevier, 2018 (F. H. Froes and M. Qian, editors), and Titanium for Consumer Applications, 490 pages, Elsevier, 2019 (F. H. Froes, M. Qian, M. Niinomi, editors).
- 245 peer-reviewed journal articles as of Feb 2020 (306 in Scopus including book chapters, conference papers and editorial notes)
- One commercialised invention - a technology for magnesium alloys (WO03062492; EP1466038; US20050161121; CN1639389A; DE60330309D1).
His publications have attracted more 11,300 Scopus citations (> 10,000 citations excluding self-citations of all authors) with an h-index of 52 as of March 2021.
He and his team have recently developed an ultrasound assisted metal 3D printing process ("Grain structure control during metal 3D printing by high-intensity ultrasound", Nature Communications, 2020, 11, 142 (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13874-z), which can convert the long columnar grains into fine equiaxed grains, demonstrated on Ti-6Al-4V and Inconel 625. In addition, it allows for the fabrication of gradient materials by switching on and off the ultrasound during metal 3D printing.
He co-developed the widely accepted Interdependence Theory of Solidification (Acta Materialia, 2011, 59, 4907-4921; 2010, 58, 3262-3270) and the in-situ phase transformation controlled selective laser melting (SLM) process for 3D printing of titanium alloys (Acta Materialia, 2015, 85, 74-84).
His other fundamental contributions include those that focused on heterogeneous nucleation (Acta Materialia, 2007, 55, 943-953; 2006, 54, 2241-2252, J. Chem. Phys. 2009, 130, 214709, J. Crystal Growth, 2012, 355, 73-77), powder metallurgy of titanium alloys (Acta Materialia , 2014, 68, 196–206) and aluminium alloys (Acta Materialia, 2010, 58, 5667-5674), de-alloying and re-alloying (Acta Materialia, 2019, 168, 376-392; Electrochimica Acta 2015, 164, 288-296) and thermodynamics of materials (Acta Materialia, 1998, 46,1669-1681; Acta Metallurgica et Materialia, 1994, 42, 4083-4086; 1994, 42, 4087-4091; Metall Mater Trans A, 2002, 33A, pp. 1285-1287; 2000, 31A, 2659-2661).
Professor Qian is an elected Fellow of American Society for Metals International (FASM), the World's foremost professional society for materials scientists, engineers and technicians (established in 1913). He currently serves as an Associate Editor for both Acta Materialia and Scripta Materialia and is on the editorial board for a number of other journals. In addition, he is the Series Editor of Elsevier on Additive Manufacturing and an Advisory Editor of Elsevier on Advanced Manufacturing and Materials. Also, he serves as the Publications Committee Chair of Materials Australia.
Professor Qian has received nine research awards including the American Society for Metals (ASM) 2006 Henry Howe Marion Medal with his colleagues, TMS Light Metals 2003 - Magnesium Technology Award, the inaugural Australian CAST-CRC Industry Partners Award (2003) and RMIT Engineering 2019 Executive Dean's Research Excellence Award - Level E (professorial level).
Professor Qian initiated the first biennial international conference on Powder Metallurgy Titanium (PM Ti) in 2011 in Australia, which has been Successively held in New Zealand (2013), Germany (2015), China (2017) and the United States (2019). It has become a premier conference on PM Ti and the scope of this conference was extended to cover 3D printing of titanium alloys since the 2015 conference in Germany. In addition, he served as the Organising Committee Chair for the first (2017) and second (2019) Asia-Pacific International Conference on Additive Manufacturing (APICAM) organised by Materials Australia in Melbourne at RMIT University.
- Todaro, C.,Easton, M.,Qiu, D.,Brandt, M.,StJohn, D.,Ma, M. (2021). Grain refinement of stainless steel in ultrasound-assisted additive manufacturing In: Additive Manufacturing, 37, 1 - 9
- Khaliq, A.,Parker, D.,Setargew, N.,Kondoh, K.,Ma, M. (2021). Dissolution Kinetics of Iron-Based Intermetallic Compounds (t5c IMCs) in a Commercial Steel Strip Metallic Alloy Coating Process In: Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B: Process Metallurgy and Materials Processing Science, 52, 41 - 50
- Lozanovski, B.,Downing, D.,Tino, R.,Tran, P.,Shidid, D.,Emmelmann, C.,Ma, M.,Choong, P.,Brandt, M.,Leary, M. (2021). Image-Based Geometrical Characterization of Nodes in Additively Manufactured Lattice Structures In: 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, 8, 51 - 68
- Zou, C.,Li, J.,Wang, W.,Qian, M., et al.,, . (2021). Integrating data mining and machine learning to discover high-strength ductile titanium alloys In: Acta Materialia, 202, 211 - 221
- Peng, C.,Fox, K.,Ma, M.,Nguyen-Xuan, H.,Tran, J. (2021). 3D printed sandwich beams with bioinspired cores: Mechanical performance and modelling In: Thin-Walled Structures, 161, 1 - 11
- Song, T.,Schmid-Fetzer, R.,Yan, M.,Ma, M. (2021). Near room-temperature formation of Cu3Sn: In-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction characterization and thermodynamic assessments of its nucleation In: Acta Materialia, 213, 1 - 18
- Song, T.,Dong, T.,Lu, S.,Kondoh, K.,Das, R.,Brandt, M.,Ma, M. (2021). Simulation-informed laser metal powder deposition of Ti-6Al-4V with ultrafine a-ß lamellar structures for desired tensile properties In: Additive Manufacturing, 46, 1 - 17
- Noronha, J.,Ma, M.,Leary, M.,Kyriakou, E.,Brandt, M. (2021). Hollow-walled lattice materials by additive manufacturing: Design, manufacture, properties, applications and challenges In: Current Opinion in Solid State and Materials Science, 25, 1 - 20
- Mustafi, L.,Nguyen, V.,Lu, S.,Song, T.,Murdoch, B.,Fabijanic, D.,Ma, Q. (2021). Microstructure, tensile properties and deformation behaviour of a promising bio-applicable new Ti35Zr15Nb25Ta25 medium entropy alloy (MEA) In: Materials Science and Engineering A, 824, 1 - 11
- Tavassoli, S.,Brandt, M.,Ma, M.,Arenius, P.,Kianian, B.,Diegel, O.,Mention, A.,Cole, I.,Elghitany, A.,Pope, L. (2020). Adoption and Diffusion of Disruptive Technologies: The Case of Additive Manufacturing in Medical Technology Industry in Australia In: Procedia Manufacturing, 43, 18 - 24
12 PhD Completions12 PhD Current Supervisions and 1 Masters by Research Current Supervisions
- Non-destructive detection and analysis in AM metal (PhD candidate Sana Awan). Funded by: CSIRO Post Graduate Top Up Scholarship from (2021 to 2025)
- A high-power-ultrasound 3D printing enabling apparatus for the manufacture of unique top-quality orthopaedic implants. Funded by: Harold and Cora Brennen Trust Grant from (2021 to 2021)
- Additive Manufactured Lightweight Ballistic Protection Materials. Funded by: Defence Science and Technology Group - Contract from (2019 to 2022)
- Novel antibacterial products inspired by nature. Funded by: CASS Foundation - grant from (2019 to 2021)
- Unlocking the potential of low-cost beta-titanium alloys by 3D printing. Funded by: ARC Discovery Projects 2018 from (2018 to 2020)